Salsa diva.

 I met him at a salsa class last March.  A class that I enrolled in for myself, as part of my 2010 New Year's resolution to get out and try something new.  It was never about meeting a man, in fact I declined the advances of many before him.  Apparently, there are a decent number of attractive, eligible bachelors with great careers, i.e. a J-O-B, in these classes.  I don't know why any woman would try online dating or the club scene, when they could just sign up for a salsa class. However, I was there to learn to dance, to spin and twirl, and flash my salsa hands (jazz hands with Latin flare).  It is sexy and beautiful and every evening after work, I lived the fantasy of becoming a sequin-clad salsa diva. 

 The class does not require a partner.  Perfect, I thought.  We begin with a warm-up routine which looks like a chorus line while we follow in step with the instructor in front of the class in Simon-says fashion.  I loved to see myself dancing in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors.  My body, strong and healthy and sexy. I feel amazing when I am there.  Another part of myself begins to appear.  The part that is confident, beautiful, desired, but unattainable. 

After the warm-up, the men choose a partner, we pair up and get into a large circle.  After each part of the lesson, the teacher shouts, "Switch" and the women move on to the next partner in clock-wise direction.  If only the teacher could yell "Switch" in my dating life and I could move on to a more suitable partner who knows how to lead and doesn't keep stepping on my feet.

That's how I met, the Manchild.  My love, my weakness, and currently my vice.  "Switch" and my hands were in his for the first time.  His steps were awkward and clumsy.  He is attractive, but only as tall as I am with my dancing shoes on. Dark hair. He has all of it at age thirty-nine. Not bad. Unassuming, really.  There was something humble and gentle about him.  Childlike, with a smile that still makes me weak in the knees.  I wasn't immediately overcome by him.  He caught my eye, but when the instructor yelled "Switch" I was on to the next partner. Spinning, laughing, and letting go, I forget about him until the next week when we find ourselves again in lock-step.  He asked me to the Latin Film Festival Gala where we could practice our moves.  He needed it more than I.  It wouldn't be long before I would be needing him, more than I could ever imagine.

 Flash forward, almost a year later. Our relationship broken and dysfunctional. I admit it, the man that I swore off.  The Manchild who broke my heart by completely dissappearing for the two weeks encompassing the holidays,  has been sleeping in my bed for the third night in a row. And when I say sleeping, I mean not doing anything even closely resembling sleep in my bed. It really is a strange expression that means pretty much the opposite of what it says.  In any event, I am getting a healthy dose of oxytocin nightly and sometimes daily to keep my tethered to this very toxic man.  He is sweet and I love his eyes and his smile, his touch...okay, I am under duress.  It's the oxytocin talking.

So last night, in an attempt to reclaim some of my dignity and good sense, if any remains, I returned to my salsa dance class after three weeks of absense for the holidays. Time to return to something that is all my own, not about the Manchild.

Not long into the class, I start  to see that confident and sexy salsa diva in the mirror again.  Like an old friend, that I didn't know I missed so much.  I have a feeling that part of my recovery will involve holding onto to my passions and seeing myself in a new way, not just a hard-working single mom, a daughter, a sister, a best-friend, or belonging to any man, but instead the untamable Latin dancing queen, in effect a salsa diva.   

Falling off the wagon.

I am going to keep to at least one of my promises.  Even though I don't feel like it, I am writing today.  This may be the only thing keeping me sane at this point.

Manchild is back in the nook.  He shouldn't be.  He isn't really sorry for ignoring my calls and texts and not making any attempt at contact for two weeks of the Christmas and New Years holidays.  He argues with me that he needed to focus on his family.  Just a BS excuse, I know.  Yet, I listen to the BS excuse.  I don't feel in control of my life right now.

I know that it is wrong to be with him, yet I can't seem to stop.  It is addiction at it's worst.  I am unable let go of someone that causes me to be so self-destructive.  When I'm not with him, I want another hit.  When I'm with him, it's not enough.  I am building a tolerance.

I know that I am wrong.  I am avoiding my BF at the moment because she keeps me honest and at the moment I don't want to be.  I just want to cling on to him tightly while he is here.  At the moment, I want to feel good.  My BF tells me not to let people shit on my face and I am letting him shit on my face.  While she may not be a poet, she is absolutely on the mark. I just can't face the truth right now.

On the flip side, I want more than he will ever be able to give me.  I want reciprocal love.  I want a man that will go to great lengths for me, the way I'd do for him.  I want a partner, lover, and friend.  I want to be happy and share that happiness with a man deserving of it.  I want my two boys to see what a real, healthy loving relationship should look like.  All of this feels so out of reach right now.  I am under quarantine, hiding out from friends and family who will pass judgment on me for letting Manchild back in the nook. If we are only as sick as our secrets, I am terminal.

There is only one thing left to do now.  Acknowledge that I am not strong enough to get out of this alone.

I am going to pray to God and ask Him to take this burden from me.  Ask Him for guidance.  And remember that even when I a not loving myself, God does love me.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Today, this is my mantra and plea for help.

I love you like a fat kid loves cake.

Suffice it so say, I stayed.  Of course, I'm a dateaholic.

He is sick with a sinus infection.  He is pale, weak, and congested.  He is shocked to see me there and mentioned how crazy it was for me to be there.  He is right.  And there I am.  My pride and self-respect are nowhere to be found.

His father is sick, now hospitalized. His mother exhausted and ill herself, unable to continue round-the-clock care on her own.  And let's be honest, he is the eldest Hispanic son.  He's going home. It was predetermined at birth.

But there is more so much more.

He says that he didn't call because he was feeling guilty. Just not guilty enough. Not about a sordid affair, but about his relocation to San Antonio to care for his parents.  He didn't want to tell me. He just wants to leave me behind like a dream you forget seconds after waking up.

And now I know.  He never did love me.  He never asked me to follow.  Well, that's not completely true.  After his long explanation and me looking back up at him with my tear-filled, Bambi eyes.  He said, "Come with me, but I know you can't because of your kids and the custody arrangement, right?" Not the invitation I was looking for. 

He is not in love.  He is in like.  As for me, I know now for certain I am in love, though as dysfunctional as it may be, because my heart actually aches, my chest is tight, and I just want to roll up in a ball under the covers and cry.

I can't breath.  I can't breath when I think of my life without him. I also can't breath when I think of life with him, a man that doesn't love me enough to show me respect and reciprocal love.

Now the real decision.

Am I strong enough to stick to my pledge?  He wants to have dinner tonight. I know you must think I am freakin' out of my mind. I am, I suppose.

If I continue to see him, knowing that he is leaving in three, or four, or five months, as soon as he gets a job, I am prolonging and potentially intensifying the pain I will feel. If he doesn't get a job soon, I will know that he is only staying because he can't leave, not exactly my dream relationship.  If I cave, I would also be putting off my dateaholic recovery program.  Most importantly, and not to be so easily disregarded, my self worth dangles in the balance if I let him back in.  The fact that I went to the airport and that I am speaking to him at all means there's not much self-worth to speak of.

He says he loves me.  However, he also loves food, skiing at Mammoth, a good Maragarita, and authentic tacos in Tijuana.  He likes me. Scratch that, this treatment feels more like he hates me, but my illness, my addiction, keeps me in the game.

If he loved me, he'd never let me go. He'd never let a day pass without a phone call. He would have remembered my birthday (material for yet another posting) and marked the day with celebration. He would always follow-through and be there when he says he is going to be there. He also wouldn't selfishly be asking me to prolong my pain.

Sometimes I think that I settle for so little because, I don't know what the real thing, Love, feels like or should even look like.  Most of all, I'm not sure that I even deserve it.

I sound absolutely pathetic.  I am absolutely pathetic.  My friends and family all say the same thing.  You are educated, attractive, you have a lot going for you.  You can do better, but I am not sure that I really believe it.  I don't know how to change my mind set.

I shouldn't have given Manchild the opportunity to even see me ever again. Let alone, go to him, listen to him, let him call me...I should be enraged, angry as hell, and turn off my feelings for him like a light switch at the first sign of his douchebaggery.  I don't feel those things.  I feel sadness and I still don't want him to leave, even after he blew me off for the entire Christmas holiday.  He ruined everything we had and my eyes well up tears and my heart aches when I allow myself to think about it. I am ever so dysfunctional.

The last meal doesn't taste so good.

This is  not my proudest moment. I am at the airport, it's nearly midnight, and I am not even sure that he is on this flight. Waiting for the last flight coming in from San Antonio. I'm assuming that he was actually in SA. Assuming he is not already home, safe and warm in his  bed. For all I know, he quit and moved away or is coming in on a later flight.

This is ridiculous. Yet, here I sit, as though my shoes were full of lead. My eyes transfixed on Gate I, hoping he will walk down the corridor...And for what, a man who definitely doesn't love me and never wanted to marry me.

I am better than this. Maybe I should leave now. He never has to know I was even here.  If he is on this flight, it gets here in ten minutes.

To be continued...

The last meal.

I know that I shouldn't even be thinking it.  I shouldn't even consider it, but the plan is being hatched.  I'd never admit it to anyone, even my BF. I want Manchild to be held accountable for his crimes. I want him to look me in the eye and admit what he has done. I want for him to have to answer for what he has done.  I foolishly want an apology. I want to understand why he didn't love me enough to stay or to call at very least.

Manchild professed his love, showered me with Christmas gifts, home-cooked meals, back rubs, lots of love and affection, in the days leading up to his mysterious exit.  We'd been dating since March.  We were serious, so I thought. Exclusive, I thought.  And in love, I thought. He was spending the night at least five nights out of the week.  We were playing house in a house of cards.

It's all so clear now.  I moved into a house that's fifteen minutes from his office, beneficial for him by shortening his morning commute. Of course he kept his place, needing an escape hatch. And I, in all of my dysfunction, provided sex on his whim,  love, support, a home, a family. I was a warm body.  He was using me and didn't give a second thought to waiting until I went to work a couple of days before Christmas, packing up all of his things that he brought to my house, and disappearing without so much as a call or text for the next two weeks. 

Now, I knew that he was supposed to be visiting family in San Antonio.  However, let's be real here.  He was in San Antonio, not the dark side of the moon. There is no excuse for his disappearing act.  Only, the truth.  He does not love or respect me.  He is selfish and cares only for himself.  He used me to pad the crushing blow of losing his fiance last year.

 Smart girl, left him for someone else...however, her dysfunction is that she continues to pull him back in whenever her relationship is on the rocks.  Apparently, it was a rocky holiday season for her, as she was needing him to make the holidays a bit more tolerable. I don't blame her. That's too easy and it let's him off the hook.
He is the bully on the playground, the villain in black tying the damsel to the train tracks, your worst nightmare...A forty-year-old man who has never been married and has no kids. Let the alarm bells go off.  My attraction to the wrong kind of men is a sort of ear plug that prevents me from hearing those alarm bells.  A woman with healthy dating habits would have run in the opposite direction. I ran toward it.

So, on Day 2 of my quest for happiness, I am giving myself one last reprieve.  Like a last meal request from a death row inmate.  Confronting him with his lengthy list of bad behaviors, will be like indulging in fried chicken, mac'n cheese, a chocolate sundae for desert, and a bottle of Merlot...Tomorrow, I promise to be a better woman, but today, when he returns, he will need to answer to me.  Explain himself.  Know that I deserve more and he does not deserve me.

Wish me luck.               

 (Please hold the I told you so's for much later.)

Sushi seems painless.

Alone again, naturally.

It would be too easy to call up a guy "friend" for dinner or drinks. We all know where that leads. Well, I did it anyway.  I left a voicemail for Richard inviting him out for dinner. I was already an hour from home, wrapping up my New Years' "Be good to myself day." So, rather than  go to dinner solo,  a fate worse than death by flesh eating virus, I called Richard. Of course, he didn't bother calling back.  Perhaps, an unexpected side effect of the project is finding out who my friends are. Male friends, anyway.

So sushi seemed painless. Starving, I'd find a good sushi bar. Bar is the key. I just couldn't bear facing an empty chair. So,  I am dipping my toe in the single pool, in the "I don't have a boyfriend, nor do I need one pool." This is very foreign territory to me. It's like North Korea, extremely hostile and and I don't speak the language.

And the party don't stop...

I woke up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to face the world sans hang over.  One perk about opting out of NYE binge drinking last night.

Complete with massive bed-head, wrinkled pajama pants, hot chocolate and tear stains on my t-shirt, and bare feet, I decided to start the year off right by going outside to pull in my trash-cans before the HOA starts bitching about it.  I wasn't two steps out the door when the heard the familiar sound of the locked door shutting behind me. 

Alone. Locked out my house, looking like shit-soup, barefoot in 45 degree weather, I wanted to roll into the fetal position on my lawn and quietly weep.  Not at all pathetic.  Instead, I went door to door, fearing frost-bite, knocking on doors in hopes that someone in this new home development had moved in already or had stayed in town for the holiday.  No such luck.  Feeling more alone than ever, I continued to walk down the street to a home still under construction where three house painters offered assistance.  They let me warm up and use a cell phone to call for help. I called the only number I know by heart. And my best friend didn't answer.

Then I start to think about my options.

People with keys to my house:
1.  My BF...She lives about 45 minutes away and she sleeps like the dead, so no luck there.  She also just moved so I don't know her address or how to get to her house.
2.  Manchild who is in either in SF, Vegas, or San Antonio, not really sure. He is busy screwing his ex-girlfriend anyway. That reminds me, I need that key back.
3.  And, my teenage son, who is visiting with my extremely bitter ex-husband who lives an hour away.

So, by the true grace of God.  I went back to my house, almost defeated.  Then it happened.  I remembered a spare car key hidden in my garage.  Much to my amazement,  I had just put a full tank of gas in the car yesterday.  I even found a pair of black rubber rain boots in my trunk. Thank God, Jesus and Baby Jesus. I knew what I had to do. 

I drove an hour to my ex-husband's house.  The thought of him seeing me in all my fashionable glory made my stomach ache, but I needed that key. Without a purse, cell phone, money, or a driver's license I made the trek.

Mission Accomplished. I am happy to report that I am home, safe and warm.  And I didn't need a man to solve my dilemma for me...Well, one man did come through.  My oldest son. When I got there and got past the gatekeeper, there he was.  Tall and skinny and handsome as ever. I thanked him for the key and gave him a kiss on the cheek and asked him to give a kiss to his little brother for me.  He was still sleeping.  It was a gift.  I started my year off with the only men in my life that really count.

Let's get this party started.

My New Year's Eve consisted of my comfy men's pajama bottoms, my favorite grey t-shirt with the tiny tear on the hem, a cup of hot chocolate, and my cat.  Let's not forget channel surfing and the occasional break to sob into my t-shirt and blow my nose into a paper towel.  It's not sexy, but it's me. This is as real as it gets.

I opted out of party invites. Who feels like partying when they are in the midst of a devastating break-up.

I am too weak right now to ward off the advances of an even slightly cute guy who offers a shoulder to cry on.  And my good friend Richard actually did.  God bless him.  Richard, if you ever somehow stumble upon this blog, know this, I could easily have come over to your place last night and taken you up on your offer for champagne and that wonderful, comforting shoulder of yours.  However, I knew that I would be in your bed and breaking my resolution before I even had a chance to get it started. You are hot in that rugged, cowboy-fire-man kind of way and you are a good man.  I am not ready for you or anyone like you. Not yet.  Hence, the Project. 

I am in post-break up mode.  The upside, I have zero appetite and can actually feel my body morphing into a size zero.  Not a bad upside.  The downside, I still miss the Manchild (not his real name, but fitting all the same).  I go back-and-forth between missing his smile, his kiss, his touch, his shirts hanging in my closet and then the absolute repulsion when I think of him with his ex.  Spending the holiday with her, having dinners with her, kissing her at midnight.  That was supposed to be my kiss, my holiday, my dinner.  There is something fundamentally wrong with missing a man, albeit Manchild, that was so careless with my heart, he didn't give a second thought about shattering it into tiny pieces.

Yuck. Gross. Disgusting. Shake it off.

I'm proud of myself for my first success.  I spent the night alone and not just any night.  The night of couples and kissing and late night drunken sex.  For the record, it is important to note and remind myself, I chose to be alone.  Not with some guy that pretends to be my friend and then tries to make out with me or wants some arm candy for the night.  It felt good.  Damn good.

Fuck Manchild and the tiny horse that he rode in on.  If this isn't empowerment, then I don't know what is.  Hello, 2011.